The Back-Up Plan
by Verdreht
Summary: In which Danny is an ex-cop-turned-petstore-owner in Manhattan trying to get custody of his daughter Grace; Steve is an ex-Navy SEAL with a dairy farm, possible PTSD, and dreams of starting his own organic restaurant; and children are definitely not the only issue. Plenty of h/c, angst, fluff, McDanno loveliness, and everything else good in this world.
1. Chapter 1

_I can't believe I didn't wear a tie for this,_ he thinks, glancing at his reflection in the freakishly shiny wood table._ How embarrassing. If I was in real court doing this, I would've worn a tie. And a coat. _He happens to glance down, then, and his eyes widen when he sees a smear of red on the left breast of his shirt. _Shit!_ He knew he shouldn't have had spaghetti for lunch. Damn Italian comfort food. Damn it to hell.

"Sorry I didn't wear a tie."

The man across the table from him looks up, and Danny nearly winces when the light catches his glasses. "What?" he says.

"Uh…my tie. Sorry."

The man snorts out a laugh and a smile that brings out every wrinkle on his old face. "I'm not looking at your tie; I'm looking at your paperwork."

Danny actually _does_ wince, now. "Right," he says, and then mutters under his breath, "Now I kind of wish you were looking at my tie." He's always been bad with paperwork. He was when he was on the force, he was when he was on Wall Street, and it sure as shit hasn't gotten any better in his current line of work.

The sharp click of a pen and the sound of it hitting the table snaps Danny out of his head.

"All done," the old lawyer – Scott Harris, Attorney at Law – tells him matter-of-factly. "We'll, uh, go submit them to be served. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes, and you'll be good to go."

Danny manages a smile. "This is the first time I've heard that word and I'm not freaking out." After all, between being a cop and being a financier, 'served' is not a word he's been endeared to.

"That's good. Just relax."

But Danny snaps forward in his seat, his watch clacking against the wood of the table. "I can't! I'm totally freaking out."

"Oh, come on. Everything's gonna be great!" Harris says. "I have a feeling that the gods of Family Court are going to put you and your beautiful baby girl together."

Danny thinks about pointing out that his beautiful baby girl is, in fact, eight, but it seems kind of a moot point. Besides, he doesn't get the chance. With a pat on his shoulder, Harris takes the carpal tunnel-inducing stack of paperwork Danny's just spent the last hour of his life filling out, and leaves the room.

"Thank you!" Danny shouts after him, and once the door clicks into place, he sinks back into his chair with a deep, bone weary sigh.

_Oh God, I hope this works. I've wanted this for so long_. To have Grace living with him at last. His daughter, his _family_ – it's what he's wanted ever since things went downhill with Rachel.

_Maybe this isn't how I pictured it, exactly. _He always pictured himself with a wife, a house, a picket fence…but after the divorce, he's realized that women aren't so much his cup of tea, houses are hard to come by in Manhattan, and it's really hard to keep picket fences white for very long. But with Stan and Rachel moving from city to city for his work, they sure couldn't raise a child. So he figured it was time to improvise.

_Thought I'd have a little more support, _he thinks, and he's kind of torn between smiling and grimacing when he remembers telling Mona, his best friend since college, his plans to file for full custody of his daughter. She'd been…vocal, to say the very least.

"Do you realize what kids do to your sex life, Danny?" she'd quipped when he'd paid her a visit the day before. "Because I will tell you. I will tell you about my sex life."

"I don't want to hear that," Danny'd said, because he really, really didn't. Just thinking about it now is enough to make his already-nervous stomach do a flip in his gut.

His conversation with Clive had gone similarly. All he'd asked was to be able to list him as a contact, but the guy just wasn't big on commitment of any kind, and in the end…

_Well, that was a bust. _

So, he took life by the horns, and he did what he had to do.

_Yeah. It's gonna be okay. I have a plan. _

The door opens, and Harris comes back in.

"The pigeon's left the coop," he says. "We should hear back in about a week. Maybe more – you know how these things go."

Danny nods, because yeah, he knows the red tape tango. And he thinks he can wait a week. "Thanks."

"Oh, you don't need to thank me." They shake hands, and Danny thinks that's that, but Harris starts speaking again. "By the way, I know an excellent support group for single fathers, if you're interested."

"Great!" He's not actually sure whether he's interested or not, but it doesn't hurt to check it out.

He feels a little bit giddy as he leaves the law office. Which is kind of funny, because everyone in the waiting room looks some kind of pissed, peeved, or otherwise generally unhappy with their lives. But even when he gets outside and it's dropping buckets, he's grinning. A week. A week, and he might have his daughter.

Running out to the street, he raises a hand to hail one of the small army of taxis coming down the street, and he thinks it must be his day, because he catches one of the first ones he sees. He mutters a brief hallelujah before ducking into the taxi.

Imagine his surprise when he sees someone else coming in from the other side.

His eyes quickly follow a pair of long legs in cargo pants – seriously? No one old enough to have legs that long should be wearing pants with pockets at the knees – up to a blue shirt that's not doing anything to hide a chest that, okay, Danny will admit, looks like it was sculpted by Michel-fucking-angelo. By the time he makes it up to his face, he's pretty much decided he's been cab-jacked by the most gorgeous man in New York, with his bright blue eyes and strong jaw and high cheekbones.

None of which excuse him for trying to steal Danny's cab.

"Excuse me?" he says. "This is my cab."

"What? You own it?" the guy shoots back.

"No, but I'm about to rent it."

The cab-jacker makes a face, and Danny decides it looks kind of like he's having a brain aneurism. "If you see someone hail a cab, and the cab pulls up, you can't just jump in the cab and say it's yours."

"Then I guess it's a good thing I didn't see you."

"I saw you see me," the guy says matter-of-factly.

Danny groans, and decides to try consulting a more reasonable party. He turns to the cab driver. "Excuse me, sir. Who saw you first? Me, or Sasquatch here?" He jabs his thumb in Cargo Pants' direction.

Instead of a reply, though, the cab driver just picks up a magazine. The headline reads 'Don't Axe Me' and Danny wonders how many times he's pulled that one.

Clearly, he's not going to be much help.

"Look," the cab-jacker says, drawing Danny's attention back to him, "maybe you're not from around here, but there's a code. There's certain rules that we try to follow—"

"You know what? Fine. Forget it. I'll get out." And he does just that, but not without getting the last words in. "But not because you're right, but because I'm in a great mood, and you—_you_, my friend, are ruining it."

He gets out of the cab and slams the door, and just when he's about to turn and start what it going to be a very soggy walk to the subway, he catches something out of the corner of his eye. Something tall, dark, and _incredibly_ annoying.

_You've got to be kidding me_. "Now what?" he snaps.

"I don't know! You tell me—hey, hey!" The taxi drives off, and while Danny only takes a few half-hearted steps after it, he watches the stranger sprint after it a good couple yards. As if he _actually_ thought he could catch up to it.

Danny's waiting with his arms crossed and a pointed expression as the stranger turns back. "Are you happy now?" he asks. "Is this," he gestures around them, "is this what you had in mind, you Neanderthal animal?"

"You said you were in a great mood and I was ruining it!" the man retorts. "I felt bad." His face scrunches up, and it's the second coming of what Danny has now officially dubbed 'aneurism face'. "Wait, did you—did you just call me a _Neanderthal?_" He holds his arms out to his side, a sort of 'dude, what the hell?' gesture.

Danny doesn't dignify it with a response. Instead, he turns and starts off down the sidewalk towards the subway entrance.

On a good day, subways are unpleasant. There's too many people in too little space, they stink something awful, and everyone's in a bad mood.

But throw in a torrential downpour, and they're downright _awful._ A lot of soggy, oftentimes sweaty bodies in a cramped space, all hot and sticky and Danny _wishes_ it smelled like wet dog.

He's leaning against one of the poles in the subway, his eyes closed, imagining he's in a happier, less conniption-inducing place. He's trying to pretend he doesn't notice the person standing literally _right_ behind him. And yeah, it's pretty packed, but it's not _that_ packed. Danny kind of wants to tell them to back off a bit, but that would involve actually acknowledging their presence.

"How's your great mood, now?"

Unfortunately, it looks like he doesn't have a choice. He can feel the cab-jacker looking down over his shoulder, and he didn't realize until now just how tall the bastard is. And smug. Very, very smug.

"Stop talking to me," he says, his voice clipped. "Just—stop."

He does, but Danny can practically _see_ him smiling, so it's really hard to enjoy the victory. It's short-lived, anyway. The subway stops, and it's just Danny's luck that the cab-jacker seems to have the same stop as him.

For a second there, he thinks he loses him between the subway doors and the surface. At the top of the stairs, though, he is once again disappointed.

"So," he says as they reach the top of the stairs, "why were you in such a great mood?"

Danny is made aware once again that this guy clearly has no concept of personal space. Which normally wouldn't bother him – it really, _really_ wouldn't – but he's trying really hard to be annoyed at this guy, and he doesn't want to have to try any harder.

"Not that it's your business, but good things are happening to me."

"Well, that's great. I hope it continues."

He sounds so genuine, Danny can't help smiling.

_Damn it._

He gives up, then, turns around, and sure enough, car-jacker guy is standing right there behind him, no more than a step or two back. "Thanks," he says, and he's surprised to find he really means that. "Have a nice life. And try not to steal anymore cabs." He turns, then, catching the tail end of a smile that makes Danny's face feel a little warm.

"You do the same."

Danny just shakes his head, smiling to himself, and with a wave over his shoulder to the handsome, irritating, kind-of-sort-of-fascinating stranger, he walks away.

* * *

He's grinning all the way to the store, and he's pretty sure he's getting some funny looks from the people he's passing but he just doesn't care.

The bell rings over the door as he pushes it open, but it's drowned out by a loud, boomy bark and the sound of wheels. Immediately, he's greeted by seventy pounds – probably more, with the wheelchair – of happy dog.

"Hey, Jensen," he says, dropping to a knee to intercept the monster truck that is his shepherd/Doberman mix. He's pretty sure if the poor guy could, he'd be rolling over, but right now, he looks content to just stand there and lick Danny's hand and arm and anywhere else he can reach, because he's just _so_ happy to see him.

There's a reason Danny likes dogs.

"Oh. My God. You're glowing."

He looks up to see his friend/employee, Daphne, coming out from around the counter, beaming at him like he's just told her _Real Housewives of New Jersey_ has been renewed for another season.

"I'm applying for custody of my daughter, Daphne; not expecting her." 'Glowing' makes it sound like he's pregnant or something, and his life is weird enough already, thankyouverymuch.

Not that Daphne seems to care. She completely ignores him – as per usual – and looks past him where he can hear Clive coming out of the back. "He's glowing, right?" she asks as he slips past his personal favorite four-legged bulldozer to get to the counter. "Tell us everything!"

"There's not much to tell," Danny says.

"No, no, no, you just declared war on your ex-wife. There's _something_ to tell."

"I didn't declare war, Clive. Stan's job means they've got to move around a lot, and he doesn't like kids. Rachel's signing over her rights by choice; I just have to get approved by family court."

Daphne makes a face. "Ew. Court." Somehow, he's really not surprised she and court aren't fast friends. "Why would you do that?"

"I tried to talk him out of it," Clive says matter-of-factly.

"No, _you_, my friend, tried to talk me out of getting custody of my daughter altogether." Something about losing his apartment to a sea of Barbie dolls and pink glitter. Apparently, something similar happened to his sister.

Clive just shrugs.

Daphne's not quite as quiet. "So," she picks back up, leaning across the counter intently, "what happened? What was it like?"

"Stiff."

"That's what she said," Clive says suddenly.

"Oh, you're a riot," Danny mutters.

Daphne actually socks him on the arm.

"What?" he whines, rubbing his abused appendage and giving Daphne the stink eye. "You left it hanging right there for me. I couldn't resist."

"Of course you couldn't. You have impulse control of a gerbil on Speed." Which is something he, as a pet store owner and ex-detective, would _never_ condone, for the record. "Anyway, it wasn't that interesting. I just went in, signed a crap load of papers, and left. Simple as that." He grabs a drink of water from the sports bottle he keeps under the counter and then turns. "If you need me, I'll be in the back, self-medicating and trying to uncross my eyes."

"Barbie dolls and pink glitter!" Clive calls after him

"I'll add that to your Christmas list!" he calls right back. He whistles and motions for Jensen to follows him, and disappears into the back of the store.


	2. Chapter 2

It was mid-afternoon a few days later when Danny got a call from Mona asking if he wanted to meet up for coffee. It was random as hell, but then, he's kind of figured out that his best friend just has times when she needs a break from the 'stay at home' part of 'stay at home mom' so that she doesn't go crazy.

…Crazi_er_.

But what the hell, he thought. It was his lunch break, and he could have used the caffeine.

So, he met up with her at the café, they grabbed some coffee, and now they're walking down the street, breathing in the "fresh" air, and talking about—

"—what childbirth does to your bladder."

On a list of things Danny should never, _ever_ know about, he's 110% sure that's pretty high up there. But he's still a detective at heart, and he knows he's going to regret it, but damn it, he just can't help himself. "What does it do to your bladder?"

Yep, he was right. He regrets it as soon as it leaves his mouth. Unfortunately, there's nothing he can do but bite his tongue, weather another analogy like the empty tube sock one from a few minutes before, and cry a little inside.

Or a lot. Cry a lot inside.

He actually feels a glimmer of hope when all Mona does is laugh at him, but it flickers out when she stops and her eyes go wide.

"Oh," she says, "I think—I just peed a little bit."

And that's a sign that it's time to change the subject.

"It may not even matter right now, anyway," he tells her. "The lawyer says it could take a few appeals, something about single fathers being 'inadequate' for child-rearing." Which he thinks is a crock of shit, but will wisely keep to himself.

"Hey." Mona's voice snaps him out of his head and back to reality. "Come with me for a second. I have to make some muffins for some bullshit teacher appreciation day."

He tries not to snort. He _really_ tries. "You're gonna make muffins?" If he sounds skeptical, it's because he is. Mona is only ever in the kitchen if take-out isn't an option – for damn good reason; she tried to bake a cake a few years ago and nearly started The Great Manhattan Fire of '09 – and he kind of doubts she's doing it for some school function.

"Oh, hell no."

Score one for Danny.

"There's a place here that sells them. I pick out the worst ones, and I pretend I made 'em."

"That's…actually kind of genius."

Mona smiles. "I have my moments."

She does, indeed. Not only is she excellent at finding her way out of unnecessary baking, but she's also _crazy_ good at finding her way _in_ through the crowds of people filling the markets at lunch time. With ease only a life in the city could bring, they navigate through the booths until they get to the muffin stand.

_The muffin stand?_

_ The muffin stand. _

_ Do you know the—_

Danny stops just short of actually physically slapping himself, and instead tries to focus on watching a master at work.

Mona's browsing the selection for the few ugly ducklings she's going to call her own, and he looks just in time to see her pick a winner. Some strawberry thing that looks like it blew its brains out.

"Ooh," she says, plucking it from the display and adding it to her growing collection. They've been here about ten minutes, and she's amassed almost a full dozen.

"Seems like a lot of trouble for something so trivial," he mutters.

Mona cuts her eyes at him. "You better get used to it. This is what you have to look forward to."

"Yeah, well, if it means getting Grace, it'll be worth it."

Mona actually makes a gagging noise in the back of her throat. "Oh, please. You're going to give me diabetes."

"Says the woman with a dozen muffins."

"Ten, actually. I need two more of these babies for a perfect set."

"Good luck with that." In the meantime, Danny occupies himself with looking around the market. He's always liked to people watch. Observing the greater population in their natural habitat. He's pretty sure that old woman has been inspecting that same grapefruit since they got here, and he'd bet money that the man in the "Erotic Therapy" booth next to this one hasn't gotten any in four…five years? Maybe more.

Probably more.

When he sees the guy going for his fanny pack, he decides it's time to change the channel, and he turns around.

And promptly chokes on the muffin sample he – stupidly, in hindsight – crammed into his mouth a second earlier.

There, across the way and standing behind what Danny thinks is a cheese stand, is none other than the cab-jacking Sasquatch himself, in all his cargo-pants-and-t-shirt glory. He's talking to an elderly woman, and _wow_, he really _is_ tall, Danny thinks, and his smile as he helps the woman with her order is just unfair.

"That son of a bitch," Danny mutters without thinking.

"What son of a bitch?" Mona asks. Of course, her interest is piqued. Anytime expletives start a conversation, chances are it'll have her attention.

Which means there's pretty much nothing he can do but tell her. "That guy selling cheese," he says. "The freakishly tall one in the cargo pants. I know him."

"He's hot."

Danny can't bring himself to argue with that, but he does frown. "He sells cheese." It's less pathetic an argument than 'he's straight,' so Danny mentally shakes hands with himself.

"You sell hamsters," Mona reminds him. So much for his moment of triumph.

"Can I help you two?" Danny doesn't need to look to know the dark-haired muffin-vendor is smiling at them.

So, he doesn't. Look, that is. He's much more interested in watching Tall, Dark, and Obviously Heterosexual – because although Danny doesn't think all gay men are fashion conscious, only a straight guy would dress like that – over there at the cheese booth smooth-talking his way to another sale.

"Like what you see?"

This time, Danny does turn around.

The vendor smiles brightly. "The muffins, I mean," she says, and then her eyes wander off to the side, and she smiles even brighter. "Hey, you."

Danny follows her gaze, and this time, it's his coffee he nearly sputters on when he sees the aforementioned Tall, Dark, and Out Of His League making his way over. He hadn't even heard him approach, but he's barely a yard away, and Danny thinks that it's really unfair that someone that tall and muscular should be able to be stealthy, too. Damn man's a ninja in cargo pants.

So, maybe he's a little hung up on the cargo pants. But in his defense, it goes against his every belief that a man his age – he pegs him in his early thirties, maybe a couple years younger than himself – should be wearing the things. And what's more, he sure as hell shouldn't look that _good_ in them.

Danny snaps out of it when he sees the stranger's eyes lock on him and widen.

"Hi," the guy says. His voice is kind of quieter than Danny remembers, and it doesn't take a detective to see the bags under his eyes. The hard life of a cab-stealing cheesemaker, he guesses. But he's smiling, and he seems genuinely happy to see him, so that seems to give a little more life to his face. "What a nice surprise. How did you know I worked here?"

"I…didn't."

The guy's eyes widen, and his mouth forms an 'o' before settling into a grin that's even wider than before. It shows of dimples that fucking Brad Pitt would kill for and crinkles the corners of his eyes just so that Danny _almost_ misses the mischief dancing in them. "Oh, so you followed me here?"

Danny snorts. "Me? Follow you here?" He presses his hands together and points to the ground. "To the _farmer's market_?" He can only hope he sounds as incredulous as he feels, because _really?_ As if he doesn't have better things to do than follow some stranger around, regardless of how attractive he is. "That's—that's actually funny. But no, we came to buy muffins." Which, he realizes as he says it, sounded like a much better explanation in his head.

"You better buy something," the muffin girl says. "You've been here for half an hour."

Glancing down at his watch, Danny discovers that it has, in fact, been twenty-six minutes since they got here, and _holy shit_ that's a long time to look for muffins. He's pretty sure he could have made them that fast.

"Well, it's—it's really nice to see you," Cargo Pants says, wringing his hands a little. It would be funny to see the guy a little flustered, Danny thinks, if he wasn't kind of off-kilter himself. It might be weird, but he's kind of starting to get the impression that Steve might…well, not to be fourth-grade about it, but _like_ like him. Following him on the subway could be chalked up to happenstance, but this, the way he's smiling like a nervous high-schooler is kind of pointing towards something a little different. Maybe Tall, Dark, and Heterosexual is playing in his league, after all.

But then Steve's brows furrow, and he frowns. "I never did get your name. I'm Steve." He offers his hand, which Danny takes automatically.

Of course, he has a firm hand shake.

"I'm Danny," Danny says.

Steve smiles. "Danny."

"And I'm Mona," chimes a voice behind him, and Danny steps to the side a little as Mona slides up to the forefront. "So, how do you two not know each other?"

"He stole my cab," they say in unison.

Mona looks between them for a second. "Oh…okay."

This whole thing is suddenly very awkward, Danny realizes, and as Mona turns around to finish paying for her dozen ugly ducklings, he does too. "We should go," he says. Preferably soon, before this can get any weirder.

But instead of going along with him like a _good friend_, Mona turns back to look between him and Steve, and she arches an eyebrow. "We should?"

"Yeah. We had that important _thing_, remember?" He tries to force as much meaning into the words as he can without being too obvious, because he gets the sneaking suspicion Steve isn't exactly slow on the uptake.

He sure as hell isn't slow on the return. "Well, can your important thing wait just a few minutes?" he asks, his eyes suddenly bright, and Danny's kind of reminded of when Grace brings home a school art project she's dying to show off. "I'll give you a taste of my cheese."

Danny's really glad he hasn't taken another drink of his coffee, because he's pretty sure that right there is spit-take material. As it is, he just kind of stares at the guy, wondering _just_ how long it'll take him to realize the words that came out of his mouth.

Not long, it seems.

Steve's smile falls, and his face is suddenly very severe. "I can rephrase that," he says seriously, nodding.

Against Danny's better judgment, he lets Mona drag him over to the cheese stand after Steve. There's another man standing behind the table – an Asian-looking guy, with almost unnaturally sharp cheekbones and a visually assaulting Hawaiian shirt – but before he can exchange pleasantries, Steve's talking again.

"Okay, this is our basic chevre. Probably our best seller." He looks to the guy behind the table, and they exchange nods. "It's the cheese that started it all, as they say."

Except Danny's pretty sure nobody says that. Ever.

He keeps that to himself, though. Partly because it would be rude, but mostly because Steve seems really interested in what he's saying, and even though Danny couldn't care less about what kind of cheese is what, he thinks it's kind of fun hearing how excited Steve is about it. Passion is passion, he guesses, whatever the object.

Steve continues, telling them, "These are our surface-ripened cheeses. These are fantastic. And these," he gestures to the last plate, "are the aged raw milk cheeses."

Which means absolutely nothing to Danny, no matter how charming Steve is when he's talking about them – and no, no he did _not_ just think that – and he glances over to see if Mona's catching about as much as he is.

"Now—" He pauses, and when Danny looks back at him, he's watching them intently. "This is _really_ boring, isn't it?"

"Uh, no," Danny lies, because he finds he actually doesn't want to hurt the guy's feelings.

Unfortunately, at the same time, Mona says, "Eh, yes."

And it probably doesn't help that Cheekbones behind the table is nodding knowingly.

Steve glances over at him, and seems to think that's an excellent time to change the subject, because he gestures to Cheekbones with the piece of 'aged raw milk cheese' he just speared on a toothpick. "This is Chin," he says. "He works for me."

Chin smiles at Danny and Mona. "Aloha."

Either it's affected, or Chin is as Hawaiian as his boat-and-palm-tree-patterned shirt.

"Hi," Danny says, shaking the hand Chin offers quickly. "Danny."

"Mona."

Steve politely waits until they finish their introductions, even though Danny can tell just from looking at him that he's practically bouncing on the inside. He wonders if it's just because he's anxious and excited, or if he might've tried to counter those bags under his eyes with a little too much caffeine.

"Can I give you a sample box?" he asks.

"Oh yeah!" Mona says eagerly, but Danny shakes his head no, and she catches on. "No, we're okay."

But Steve apparently isn't the type to take 'no' for the answer, and somehow, Danny's really not surprised. "You're not lactose intolerant, are you?" he asks. As if that is the sole reason anyone would turn down a sample box. "I hate that."

And speaking of things to hate, the muffin girl from the booth before chooses that time to make a reappearance, bouncing over to lean on Steve's arm. "Hey, you're still coming over tonight, right?"

Steve couldn't look more alarmed if he was being held at gunpoint. "I…um…yeah," he says, but even as the muffin girl moves around behind him, his eyes are locked on Danny's.

After that little display, Danny thinks it's perfectly clear what league Steve's playing in.

"We should go," he tells Mona. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Steve make a miserable sort of face and let out a sigh, but he ignores him. "Ready?"

"I want a sample box," Mona protests. He should've known better than to try to pull his friend away from food. Especially something dairy and potentially fattening.

"Okay, well I gotta go." Technically, it's not a lie. His lunch will be over soon, and he needs to get back to the store so that Clive can go get some food, or else he'll never hear the end of it. "Bye."

With that, he starts of down through the market. He thinks he might hear Steve tell him bye, but he brushes it off as wishful thinking and keeps on going.

He doesn't stop until he reaches the store, and he makes it back with about ten minutes of his break to spare. The bell rings as he opens the door, and he's barely set foot inside it when Daphne's voice greets him.

"Okay, spill it," she says. "Who is he, what does he do, how do you _know him_?"

She fired it all off in such rapid succession that Danny can barely manage a confused 'who?'

Daphne rolls her eyes and huffs. "_Steve_. From the farmer's market. He's called twice already."

Which is impressive, Danny thinks, because it only took him about fifteen minutes to get here from the farmer's market. He guesses patience is not Steve's virtue.

Tenacity, on the other hand….

"I'm going kill Mona." Because how else would Steve have gotten the number? "And I was a cop, so I know how to make it look like an accident."

"Is he a farmer?" Clive asks from the fish tank. And speaking of accidents, he takes a pretty graceless tumble off the step stool.

Danny tries not to laugh for his sake. "He makes cheese," he says.

"He's a pilgrim?"

"Oh, Mona called, too," Daphne chimes in. "She said his feta was incredible. That makes so much more sense, now."

He shudders to think what it sounded like, then.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who is this guy?"

"He's nobody," Danny says. "He's just…some guy." _Smooth, Danny. That'll definitely throw them off the scent. _On the not-so-off chance that it doesn't, though, he starts to excuse himself to the office. He's got to make the final arrangements for the Cesar Millan signing that night.

"Are you blushing?" Daphne asks as he passes her.

Clive's is more of an accusation. "You're totally blushing!"

Danny resists the urge to groan. "Can we just calm down and get ready for the book signing?"

"No, this is exciting," Daphne says. "I'm not calming down."

Of course she isn't. She's like a dog with a bone. A really hyper, really fashionable dog. Like a pomeranian. Or a pekingese.

"Look, he's nobody, and even if he is somebody, it doesn't matter, because I don't want to be with anybody, okay? So let's just get back to work. Can we do that, please? Can we do that?" He's not snapping. Actually, he thinks he's being pretty calm about this whole thing, all things considered.

And for the record, he doesn't get why everyone's making such a big deal about him applying for custody of Grace, because sometimes, it feels like he already takes care of two kids as it is.

"Finding a relationship _is _work," Daphne calls after him.

"I don't want a relationship." He punctuates the announcement with the slam of the office door behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

The Cesar Millan book signing's going great. He's giving a pretty illustrative overview of dog greeting behaviors – he's pretty sure he hears Jensen huff whine in embarrassment, but he could just be bored – that gets the crowd chuckling.

Danny's kind of surprised at the turnout. He knows he has his regulars at the shop, but he doesn't remember having _this many_ regulars. He knows the name probably brought a few stragglers by, but a lot of the faces are familiar, and that makes him kind of happy. The pet shop isn't exactly struggling, but it's nice to get a little bit of, what would Cesar say? _Positive reinforcement_ every now and again.

There are still people coming in, too. The signing's only been going on for about ten minutes, so there are still some late-comers. Danny kind of wishes he'd had the foresight to take the bell down for the night, so it wouldn't keep going off while Cesar was speaking, if not out of respect for Cesar, than out of sympathy for the people who're coming in. He understands, after all, what it's like to have a life. Matter of fact, he's probably going to duck out before much longer, leave Clint to close up the shop, because he's wiped out, and he _has_ actually read the book.

But for now, he's content just to watch and listen to Cesar hit pitches that _literally _make the dogs in the back whimper. Poor guys. Jensen buries his head under his paws, and Danny's pretty sure he would be rolling if his wheels didn't get in the way.

Just when Danny's about to glance over and mouth an apology to his four-legged, two-wheeled friend, though, he catches something out of the corner of his eyes. Something tall, something dark…something he will begrudgingly admit to being handsome, if only to himself.

He glances over, and promptly does a double-take, which is rewarded with a cheeky little grin from Manhattan's most persistent pilgrim.

"Okay, now this is getting weird," he says. He tries to keep his voice low, again, partly out of respect for Cesar, and partly because now _he's_ one of the people making the noise, and he really doesn't want to draw any unwanted attention to himself. He's already getting plenty of that from Steve.

Steve, at least, has the decency to keep his down, too. "I know. We keep running into each other. It's crazy." He's grinning that grin again, the one that either wants to make Danny smile or punch something in the face. Preferably Steve.

"Oh, so your being here is just another coincidence?"

"Oh, no, I love this guy."

Danny blinks. He just—he actually said that with a straight face. Okay. No, no, this has to stop. Immediately. "Don't you have someplace to be tonight?"

"Not 'till later," Steve says easily, and _damn it_, that _grin_.

"Do you even _have_ a dog?" he asks. Because that would make this whole thing slightly less ridiculous, if only slightly.

But no. Steve shakes his head. "No."

Danny does smile, now, but it's the incredulous kind of smile that's really more of a desperate cry for the return of some sort of order to the universe. "Of course not," he says. "Because, you know, why would you have a dog if you were here to hear the Dog _Whisperer_?"

"I don't know, I might get one, now that I can _be the pack leader_." And wow, that accent is actually offensive. Truly. Although he can't help noticing with some measure of gratitude that Steve's breath smells like cinnamon.

The little voice in his head he's nicknamed 'Daphne' takes that opportunity to point out that that's _probably_ not for Cesar.

Danny quickly presses the mute button on that particular line of thinking. Yep, he decides. Yep, this definitely has to stop, before his imagination gets any wilder than it already is. Daphne's one thing; if the voices in his head start channeling Mona, he's _screwed_.

_You say that like that's a bad thin—_

"I'm really busy here," he lies. It sounds better than 'I was just standing here killing time before I go home and watch the Giants game I recorded, but I think I'm gonna leave before the voices in my head make me do something stupid.' It's also a lot shorter.

Steve turns around, and at least, Danny thinks, at _least_ the smile's gone. "Okay, so, do you have a girlfriend or something? A boyfriend? You can just tell me; I can take it."

It's hard to tell what's more distracting: the crazy deep blue of his eyes, or the fact that they're practically breathing the same, minty fresh air.

"No," Danny says automatically, only to realize about point-five seconds after he does that it's _really_ not any of Steve's business anyway.

"What? So you just know you're not interested in me?" And damn, he's intense. The height difference doesn't help, but it's those eyes of his that are the real clenchers. "You're making a big mistake. I'm _very_ interesting."

Danny doesn't doubt that. He really doesn't. Frankly, he thinks it's _fascinating_ how the guy can make him somehow kind of giddy and extraordinarily frustrated all at the same time.

Unfortunately, "I'm just not interested in men right now," he says.

He realizes, once again, just a breath too late that he's said too much, because Steve's eyes widen, and Danny could _swear_ he sees the corners of his lips pull up a little. He leans in, too, which isn't helping.

"Oh, but—but you _are_ gay." He says it more like he's confirming a theory, though, than like he's genuinely surprised, and he seems pretty damn pleased with the news.

"Yes, I am gay!" Danny hisses, only to be hushed by what has to be a good three quarters of the room. And the rest are laughing at him with their eyes, which really isn't much better.

"Hey, you two," Cesar says, "would you please take it outside?"

That settles it. Danny is officially mortified.

"Sorry," Steve says, and it occurs to Danny, as he's giving an apology of his own, that Steve is standing so close behind him, he's actually _touching_. Clearly, the man doesn't even have a vague grasp of the concept of personal space. Or public decency, apparently, because he grins as Danny turns to look at him. "That was awkward."

Danny promptly grabs him by the sleeve of his black button-up and drags him out of the store.

As soon as they're outside, Danny lets go of his sleeve and turns on him again. "Listen, Steve, this, right now? It's not a good time for me. I'm going through some," he gestures vaguely – he can't help it, he talks with his hands; it's an Italian thing – and frowns, "_changes_." That seems like a good word for it. Because, once again, 'custody battles with my ferocious British ex-wife and her millionaire douchebag hubby' is a bit of a mouthful.

Steve arches an eyebrow. "Midlife crisis?"

"Midlife crisis?" Danny repeats incredulously. "Seriously? How old do you think I am?"

And even though he's a little bit indignant, he can still take pleasure in the fact that Steve's back to looking flustered again. He's got his arms folded across his chest and the grin is sensibly and understandably absent.

"Okay, you know what? Let's start over, because…the more I think about it, we'd never make it as a couple, anyway, you and me." And then there's _that_ word. Couple. Where the hell that came from, Danny has no idea. "You're way too sarcastic. We should be friends."

He's clearly not being serious – there may not be a smile on his lips, but there's definitely one in his eyes – so Danny doesn't feel too guilty saying, "I have enough friends." Truthfully, he's not sure his sanity can survive too many more.

"You can never have too many friends," Steve says matter-of-factly. That's kind of his mode, Danny thinks. His niche. It must be nice being so confident. "What are you doing tonight?"

Case and point.

"Getting takeout and going home to watch the Giants game I Tivo'd." Because hell, why not be honest?

"Clearly you don't have that many friends. So, okay, here's my proposition – and don't freak out, because it requires very little commitment – _I'm_ getting takeout, too. Let's walk together to the same place, order and pay for our own respective meals, and then we'll say goodbye."

Maybe he's being paranoid, but he's pretty sure Steve through in all those hand gestures for his benefit. Or maybe he was making fun of him.

Probably the latter.

Definitely the latter.

"Where do you want to go?" Because apparently, it doesn't even register to Steve that there is a possibility Danny will turn down his proposition.

To be fair, he doesn't.

They end up going to one of Danny's favorite takeout joints in this part of Manhattan: Gray's Papaya.

"That's no fair," Steve protests as Danny grabs his food off the counter. He follows behind him with their drinks. "You chose this place because it takes like two seconds."

Danny laughs. Yeah, okay, maybe he's guilty as charged, but he'll be damned if he admits it. "No, I chose it because it's the best." Which is also true.

"Alright, well, I wanna see you take a bite of that. I wanna know that you're gonna eat it."

"Fine," Danny says. He fishes his hotdog out of the bag which is frankly ridiculously big for a couple of hotdogs, and under Steve's watchful eye, takes a bite. It doesn't escape his notice that Steve didn't order anything, and he's got this sort of grimace-grin on his face like people get when they dare their buddies to do something.

Of course, Danny thinks. A body like that, he's got to be a health nut.

Danny, on the other hand, grew up on fast food and traditional Italian cuisine. _And_ he survived eight years as a New York cop and six years as Wall Street broker. He ain't sweating the cholesterol.

He takes a big bite of what is easily the best hot dog in Manhattan, and grins. "Happy now?" he says around a mouthful of delicious meat of questionable origin, and Steve's still watching him a little dubiously. "You have no idea how good this is. I can't believe you've lived in New York your whole life and you never went to Gray's Papaya. What is wrong with you?"

Steve shrugs innocently. "Actually, I haven't lived here my whole life. I grew up in Hawaii. I just moved out here a few years ago when my dad bought the farm."

Danny, who was stupid enough to try drinking, nearly chokes on his soda, and he really hopes his eyes don't bug out as much as he thinks they do, because that would be insensitive.

"Oh, no," Steve says quickly, "I mean he actually—he actually _bought_ a _farm_, and I moved up here to help him run it when he retired."

"So you're parents are still…" he really doesn't want to say 'alive and kicking,' so he's just gonna let that hang.

He realizes he probably just shouldn't have said anything at all, though, when Steve's face kind of falls. "Actually, they both passed away. My mom when I was a kid, and my dad last year." He says it remarkably casually for someone who's lost both his parents, but Danny can tell it's not a subject he cares to linger on. He shifts a little where he's leaning against the counter, and his eyebrows jump. "So, what about you?"

"Actually, my parents are both still around," Danny says. "They're separated, though. By about three thousand miles. Dad's down in Beverly Hills, mom's up here in Queens."

"Your parents are divorced?"

"Yeah. It kind of runs in the family."

It takes Steve a second, but when it sinks in, he winces and lets out a low breath. "I'm sorry," he says. "You were…I'm sorry, I—"

"It's okay. It's history."

"What kind of history we talking here?"

Danny thinks for a second for how to really describe it, takes a sip of his soda, and then asks very seriously, "How familiar are you with the Cold War?"

Apparently, Steve's familiar enough with it to get the metaphor, because he gives one of those '_ah_' kind of nods, and Danny can tell he's trying really hard not to look relieved.

Considering everything that's happened tonight, Danny doesn't really have to think too hard to figure out why that might be.

"Look, I really have to go," he says, re-packing his takeout as he does.

Steve acts like he's just snapped out of a daze, straightening up from his lean on the counter. "Alright," he says. "Uh, but I can't let you walk home alone, because…" he pauses, his eyes flicking out to the window, and his chest puffing up as he picks up his drink again, "…because this is a _very_ dangerous neighborhood." His eyebrow gives a little twitch as he raises the straw to his lips, and Danny thinks that if he's trying to look cool taking a sip of his drink, he's _really_ missing the mark.

The sad thing is, Danny _still_ finds it oddly attractive.

"You know I used to be a cop, right?"

Steve doesn't miss a beat. "I used to be a Navy SEAL," he replies, "so…" he gestures for Danny to go first, a sort of 'after you' with a cheeky grin to boot.

Danny can't help thinking that that explains _so_ much.

That said, he's not complaining as they get out onto the street. It's not exactly a long hike back to his apartment, but he thinks it might be kind of fun to have company.

"So, where'd you go to school?"

Steve makes a face that looks dangerously close to sheepish.

"What's that? What's that look for?"

"Well, I kinda dropped out when my mom passed. Went to join the Navy. I was gonna go back to school after I finished serving, but I kind of met this girl back in Hawaii when I was on leave, and—"

"Let me guess: you fell in love and got married?"

"Engaged," Steve corrects. "And started an inn in Waikiki."

Danny snorts. "Of course." At least he knows he now has a commiserate in the woes of women.

"Yeah, it lasted like three seconds. I didn't know how to run an inn, and _she_ didn't know how not to sleep with the hotel manager, so we broke it off. I got out of Hawaii, came up here with my dad and a couple of my friends – you met Chin, right? – and I've spent the last few years trying to figure out how not to blame every woman on the planet for Jenna's whorish ways."

"How's that going?"

Steve smiles. "Not so good."

And Danny can't help smiling, too, because it turns out that's something they've got in common.

They walk in silence for a little while after that, and Danny's surprised to find it's not awkward. Normally, he hates silence – it's probably why he has, _on occasion, _been accused of being a little bit on the talkative side. Not this time, though. Steve's just got this presence, this sort of surety about him that's kind of contagious, and Danny just feels…at ease.

It's actually him that breaks the silence they've got going, and Danny wonders if that's because he knows that they're getting close to Danny's place, or if he just feels like talking.

"Okay," he says, "I want to know everything." And Danny laughs, because he actually sounds genuine, like he really _does_ want to know everything. "First kiss?"

He picked a hell of a place to start.

"Uh…some cheerleader with a perm too much lip gloss."

Steve winces. "_Oh_."

"You?"

"Seventh grade. She had braces and headgear. It was terrifying."

Now it's Danny's turn to wince. "Ouch." He's goes to fish his keys out, then, because his house is just the next one down, but they fall out of his hands. He bends down to pick them up, only to find that Steve did the same, and he's holding Danny's keys out for him.

"Here," he says, and Danny takes them. It doesn't escape his notice how Steve's fingers brush his as he hands them over, and when he looks up, Steve's watching him with that intense look again. "Okay, best kiss."

Danny purses his lips thoughtfully. "That's a tough one."

"Because if we weren't just _friends_," Steve says, "I'd kiss you right now. Then I'd be your best kiss."

It's cheesy, but it's just the right amount of cheesy. "How do you know?" he asks.

Steve just shrugs, smiling softly. "I know."

And just for a moment, Danny thinks he might—

Steve's phone chooses that precise moment to go off, and Danny sighs. For his part, Steve winces, but Danny's already back to reality.

"Somebody looking for you?" He knows it's the muffin girl from that morning. He can tell by the look on Steve's face.

"Yeah," Steve says, "I have to go."

Danny nods. "Okay."

"Okay." And then he turns to start walking away.

"Bye," Danny calls after him.

Steve glances back over his shoulder. "Bye. I'll call you."

As he hurries of down the street, those long legs carrying him a hell of a lot faster than they'd been walking before, Danny watches him go. Once he's a few houses down, Danny lets out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and tosses his keys into the air and catches them.

"Right," he says to no one in particular. "Well, that was interesting."


	4. Chapter 4

"You think it was the muffin girl?"

Danny's at the gym with Mona, and usually, it's a pretty good time to catch up. That said, this is kind of a conversation he'd like to have when he's not benching one-fifty.

"I guess," he grinds out, and tries to remember what number he was on in the rep. "I don't know." He's pretty sure, though; he recognized the look on Steve's face. "Not that I care."

He hears Mona gasp, and knows it can't mean anything good.

"You like him!" she exclaims. "Ow." Seemed throwing her arm out with a weight still in her hand wasn't the best idea.

Danny drops the bar back into the cradle and sits up as quick as he can without beaming his brow it. "What if I get Grace?"

"Then it'll work out perfectly," Mona says. She sits down on the stress ball while he starts his crutches. Less risk of death if he's startled/stunned/otherwise Mona-fied into losing his grip.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Because, if you really like him, as soon as that happens, you'll break up with him because you'll have a kid, and then you won't have to put yourself out there, possibly get hurt. Again."

He really thinks she could've left that last bit out.

"I mean, that's kind of like your dream relationship."

Danny scowls. "Be quiet." It's not like that at all. "Besides, the lawyer said it'd take a couple appeals. And anyway, I'm just fine on my own."

As he switches to weights, Mona joins him – although he's not really sure those little dog toys she's lifting really count. "You gonna see him again?"

He grimaces and hangs his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

After his gym session with Mona, he heads home to enjoy his Sunday. It being the one day the pet store isn't open, it's kind of nice to just kick back. He's watching that _It's Me Or The Dog Show_, and he tells himself it's a matter of professional curiosity, but he knows it's just because Grace loves the thing, and it gives them something to talk about.

He's got a bag of chips leaning against his lap on the couch, and Jensen's by his feet, licking his lips and doing his usual whine-to-dine routine.

"Nuh uh," Danny tells him. "You've already had three, buddy. You've maxed out your credit. Try again next time."

But Jensen's dead set on trying right now, and he's nothing if not tenacious. Danny knows he'll whine himself hoarse, and he's just about to tell him off, but his cell phone rings.

He grabs it off the arm of the sofa where he left it and puts it to his ear. "Hello?...oh, Steve." He wasn't expecting that. Wasn't there like a rule or something? You ditch to go hang out with your ex-girlfriend, you wait a while before you call? Not that he's complaining, mind, he just…wasn't expecting it.

He's also definitely not expecting Steve to ask him out on a date right off the bat, but he's starting to think that, maybe with Steve, expecting the unexpected is the best course of action. And he can _expect_ Steve to show up around "nineteen-hundred hours," so he's hoping that maybe that, at least, will be predictable. The guy's a SEAL; Danny wouldn't think punctuality would be a problem.

As it turns out, punctuality is not, in fact, the problem.

His printer is.

He's got about a half hour until the fabled "nineteen-hundred hours" and he thinks that's plenty of time. He's already dressed – black slacks, a white shirt with gray pinstripes, and a black silk tie – but he got a message on his home phone from the lawyer saying Rachel's lawyer had responded to the custody application, and that he was faxing him the details. When he'd tried calling him back, no one had answered.

Unfortunately, it seemed his printer/faxer/office machine from hell had decided, on this day, in this particular moment, that life simply wasn't worth living anymore. It had jammed, about five red lights had come on, and it was making noises that no healthy machine should make.

So now he's eviscerated the damn thing, because he's pretty sure it's a jam, and if he can just get in there….

The door rings just as he gets his fingers on what he thinks is the culprit, and he doesn't really want to keep Steve waiting – he's assuming that's who it is – so he leaves it alone and does his level best not to _actually_ run to the door. He manages a brisk walk, and after a glance through the peep hole to make sure that it is, in fact, Steve, he unlocks and opens the door.

"You're early," he says. "I'll be a minute."

Steve raises an eyebrow, but he smiles, and Danny takes a second to appreciate the fact that Steve is not, in fact, wearing cargo pants. Granted, he's wearing jeans, but they're the nice kind. Dark, slim, but not those skinny abominations he sees guys wearing these days, and combined with his light blue shirt, he looks pretty damn amazing.

He figures Steve will let himself in, so once the door's open, he starts back for his office. "You want a beer?" he asks as he goes.

"Yeah, sure," Steve calls. "You want one?"

Danny pauses in the doorway and smiles. "Read my mind." And he's about to turn back into the office and fix his fax machine, but Jensen apparently decided he wanted to follow the new guy into the kitchen, and his wheelchair catches on the legs of one of the chairs. He pops a wheelie for a second, and then gravity wins out and pulls him the rest of the way over.

"Oh my God," Steve says, stopping dead in his tracks. "Is he okay?" He sounds genuinely concerned.

Danny's already on his way over. "He's fine." He grabs Jensen by his harness and by the top bar of his wheelchair, and with a little bit of a heave, gets him righted again. "Happens all the time." Which is why Jensen only gets three chips. "There you go, buddy."

Sure enough, off he goes, like it never happened. Danny sometimes thinks Jensen would prefer they pretended it actually didn't. He thinks Jensen might actually have a bit of a complex. Poor guy.

He starts back into the office at a little bit quicker of a pace than he means to, only to realize that he's pretty much running around like a chicken with his head cut off, and that _can't_ be making a good impression. He stops, turns, and presses his hands together under his chin. "I'm sorry," he says. "Can you give me a minute?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Steve waves him off towards the office, before heading off into the kitchen himself.

As soon as he's turned back around, Danny hurries back into the office. He once again finds the sheet of paper that's jammed up in the rollers, and with a little bit of creative pulling – he _really_ doesn't want to tear the paper, because that'll make this whole thing a lot more difficult – he manages to get it cleared.

The printer starts to hum, and for a second, Danny thinks he's good.

And then all the lights go out, only to flicker back on after a few seconds. It's restarting, and Danny knows from experience that takes _forever_.

"You've got to be kidding me."

He gives up. He doesn't have time to sit and wait for this thing to restart and run its test documents and reconnect to the internet and all the other ten billion things it's got to do, and that's assuming the fax'll even come through once it's happened. No. He'll just call the lawyer in the morning, get him to email him a copy or something.

In the meantime, there is a _very_ attractive man waiting in his kitchen, and as Mona so tactfully pointed out, he kind of happens to like him. So he's going to go out, have a good time, and he's going to worry about this later.

Steve's got his head in the fridge when Danny makes it back into the kitchen, and aside from giving him a really great view of what turns out to be a very great ass, it tells him Steve hasn't gotten the beers yet.

"Hey, you ready to go?" he says.

Steve takes his head out of the fridge and turns around. "You ready?"

"You have no idea."

And _there_ go the dimples, right on cue. Although, to be fair, he's probably sporting a couple of his own as he and Steve head out onto the street.

It's dark out as they start walking. All the street lights are lit and the air's just cool enough to be comfortable. The sky's clear, and he doesn't want to jinx it, but Danny thinks this might just be a good night.

"You look great tonight," Steve says out of the blue. "I mean, you always look really great, but tonight you look _especially_ great. And that shirt…it looks really good on you."

Danny glances over at him. "Thanks." He wasn't really expecting compliments, but it's nice to get them. He's about to return the favor, but Steve beats him to the punch.

"Did you buy a new shirt for our date tonight?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

"I'll take that as a yes."

Danny chuckles. "I guess you'll never know for sure."

"Yeah, guess not…." Steve sighs, falling in behind him so that they can get through some scaffolding. He waits until they get through it and he can come up and walk beside him again to continue, "Except you left the price tag on."

"What?" Danny stops short.

Now Steve's the one chuckling. "Here, allow me," he says walking around to Danny's back. "You got it under your tie."

Danny guesses that would explain why he didn't notice it. Although it begs the question of how Steve did. Guy must've been looking pretty hard. Or maybe he's just freakishly observant; it wouldn't surprise him.

He's trying really hard not to focus too much on Steve's fingers at the back of his neck. "I've had this shirt for a while, you know," he says, and he's both relieved and disappointed when he feels the _snap_ of the tag coming off and Steve's hands falling away. "I just hadn't gotten around to wearing it yet, is why the tag's still on." He watches Steve walk around and over the gate of the Sixth Avenue Community Gardens, and he notices he's still smiling that self-satisfied little grin. "You're not that special, babe."

"Really?" He doesn't sound convinced, and Danny watches as he pushes the gate open before folding his arms across his chest. He's got an expectant sort of look on his face, and Danny's not sure if he should be worried or not as he walks past Steve and into the gardens.

He stops a few steps in. Worried, he thinks. Definitely worried. Because this whole place is lit up like a cheesy Rom Com set, and it's kind of the greatest thing Danny's ever seen. All the flowers, the ivy, the lights…it may not be his usual cup of tea, but he can appreciate a beautiful thing.

"Wow," he says, and speaking of beautiful things, Steve's walking up to him. "This—this is…I don't know what to say."

"Finally."

Danny bumps his shoulder playfully. "Hey, I resent that remark."

"I didn't mean it like that." That's totally a lie, and Danny knows it, but he'll let him get away with it. Steve's gotten hold of his hand sometime – he doesn't actually know win, and seriously, Steve's a freaking ninja Super SEAL or something – and he's leading him over to a table with a white cloth, candles, and a big dish. "What I meant was, that's good. You don't have to say anything. Just come over here, sit down…."

"What? You think I talk too much?"

"I did _not_ say that."

"Oh? So what _did_ you say?"

"It's just, you're very quick," Steve tells him. "You always have a response for things. _Which I like_," he adds. "But tonight, just, you know, be surprised." He lets go of Danny's hand, then, to pull out one of the chairs and gestures for Danny to sit.

Danny arches an eyebrow. "Really?" he says. "The whole chair thing? You're gonna—" He sees Steve's deadpan look and stops himself, holding up his hands in surrender. "Okay." He sits down in the seat Steve's pulled out for him, and Steve smiles again, moving smoothly, if a little dramatically, around to the side of the table to grasp the lid of the pan. And this…this is _definitely_ one of the cheesiest things he's ever seen, but he can't help chuckling as Steve whips the lid off the dish.

His eyes widen.

"Oh," he says. "Oh, wow."

Steve holds his arms out, still brandishing the lid. "Surprise."

Surprise, indeed. Danny is definitely surprised, because sitting on the serving platter is sixteen inches of warm bread, melted cheese, and hands down the best pasta sauce in Manhattan. Even though there's not a box in sight, Danny knows just by looking at it, just by _smelling_ it, that it is his favorite kind of pie from his favorite pie place in New York.

"You…you, my friend, are good." Very good. _Too_ good. "You asked Mona about this, didn't you?" It's either that, or he's spying on him, and Danny's finding he really doesn't want this guy to be a crazy stalker, because he's kind of growing on him, and it'd suck to have to bust his face in.

"That, I can neither confirm nor deny," Steve says, but as he sits down, he flashes Danny a look that tells him all he needs to know.


	5. Chapter 5

For the first bit of the meal, they don't really talk. Steve pours the wine – because of course there's wine, and of course it's Danny's favorite kind of red, because why on earth wouldn't Steve have gone through _that_ trouble, too? – and Danny dishes out the pie, and there's a little bit of light conversation. Mostly, though, it isn't until they've each polished off most of the pizza and the first bottle of wine that they really start talking.

"So, you used to be a cop, huh?"

Danny nods, and washes down his last bite of pie before actually speaking. "Eight years, and then I moved to Wall Street for six."

"You worked on Wall Street? I don't see that at all."

Danny actually thinks he'll take that as a compliment. That said, "Oh, I was actually very good. You would've been impressed."

"Really?" Steve says. He's working on cracking open the second bottle, and Danny wonders if Steve's got something up his sleeve, bringing all this booze. Except it feels kind of wrong to call wine this good 'booze.' "How'd you get the pet store?"

It's an understandable question. Bit of a leap from cop to pet store owner, he guesses.

"Well, actually, I got it through my dog, Jensen. I bought him about three years ago at this fancy pet store near my house. Cutest little bugger you've ever seen. Six months later, he almost dies. Turns out, they were running some sort of exotic animal smuggling ring through the store. The exotic animals carry diseases, the other animals get sick…poor guy was just kinda of falling apart."

Steve pours them both some more wine. "What'd you do? Did you sue them?"

"Nah. I let a buddy of mind back on the force know about the smuggling ring, quit my job, and used the money from the stock options to buy the place. I figured the city needs at least one legitimate pet shop, and it turns out I wasn't really cut out for the Wall Street scene, anyway."

For a second, Steve just kind of stares at him, before leaning forward over the table. "I can hit a target from seven hundred yards. That do anything for you?"

Danny laughs, because he thinks for a second that Steve's kidding. But then he realizes that the guy is, in fact, a SEAL, and actually, that's entirely possible. "That…that is impressive," he says, because it is. The longest distance at the ranges at the station was twenty-five yards, so yeah, twenty-eight times that is pretty damn astonishing. "_Scary_, a little bit, but impressive."

Either Steve missed the little caveat, or he just doesn't care, because he leans back with a pleased smile on his face and crosses his arms. "Can I ask you a serious question, Danny?"

"Fire away, Super SEAL."

"Did you buy that shirt to wear for me tonight?"

Danny smirks and very deliberately wipes some imaginary pasta sauce from the corners of his mouth with his napkin, and when he thinks he's made Steve wait long enough, he leans forward and gestures for Steve to do the same.

And when he's close enough, Danny smiles and whispers conspiratorially, "I will never tell."

"Really?" Steve whispers back. There's mischief in his eyes again, and Danny watches as he pushes up out of his chair, leaning further over the table. "Because, you know, I worked Naval Intelligence for five years before I became a SEAL. I have ways of making you talk." Judging by the way he's moving in, Danny thinks it's safe to say these aren't the tactics they taught him in the Navy.

Steve's close, now. _Really_ close. Danny can feel the warmth of his breath on his face, and _damn, _he thinks, have Steve's eyes always been this blue? And then he stops thinking, because Steve's lips are barely inches from his, and—

There's the sharp clamor of glass falling, and suddenly, Danny flinches just in time to feel something wet splash all down his front. He jumps up at the same time Steve jumps back, and he looks down to see his whole front _covered_ in red wine from the bottle Steve had apparently inadvertently knocked over.

Before he can go for a napkin, Steve's already got one. "Let me get that," he says. "Let me get that." His voice comes out in a rush, and Danny starts laughing, if for no other reason than he's never seen someone look so _alarmed_ before. Steve's eyes are wide, and he's patting the towel frenetically over the front of Danny's shirt. "I'm s—"

"Okay," Danny interrupts him. He'll put the poor guy out of his misery. "I got it."

Just as he takes the rag, though, there's a burst of heat and light from the table, and Danny turns to see a huge flame rising from it. In hindsight, he'll reason that the wine and candles might've gotten to close, but for the time being, he's a little too busy worrying about making the fire _stop_ to think about how it happened.

Steve's arm appears in front of his face. He's pointing to something. "Hose," he says. "Hose over there by the plants."

"There's plants everywhere," Danny retorts, but nevertheless, he's running off in the direction Steve was pointing. Being that there are plants everywhere, after all, he's thinking it's probably not a good idea to let the flame spread.

"You see it?" Steve calls. "You get the hose?"

"I'm working on it." He's got the damn thing; it's just a matter of getting the nozzle turned the right way around and getting it away from the wall.

He starts back towards the flaming table, and he sees Steve coming at the same time. He's got a plant in his hands, and Danny's kind of confused for a second, until he dumps it out on the table. The dirt smothers some of the fire, and Danny aims the hose at the rest and lets it loose.

He doesn't stop until the fire's out. Then, and only then, does he raise his eyes from the table, and then, and only then, does he see the massive black-brown splatter of topsoil all over his front.

For a second, they just kind of stare at each other. Danny can practically hear the gun song from _The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly_ echo in his head.

And then Steve breaks the stalemate.

"This means war," he says, and then he's bolting not around, but _over_ the table like a streak of greased-freaking-lightening.

On reflex, Danny squeezes the trigger on the hose nozzle, but the spray does nothing to deter Steve. He reaches for it, and Danny tries to keep it away, but Steve's like a damn octopus with his crazy long arms, reaching around Danny.

"Hand it over," he saying through gritted teeth around these easy, happy laughs. "Give it!"

He's strong, too. Danny's no pushover, and he still manages to get his hands on the nozzle. They fight over it for a second, both laughing and shouting, and he can only imagine what the people out on the street must be thinking, but he's having too much fun to care.

He tells himself that he _lets_ Steve get the hose turned around, but the next thing he knows, he's getting blasted with the damned thing, too.

It actually goes downhill from there.

About a half hour later, after they've cleaned up what they could of their warzone and left it behind, they're walking down the street back to Danny's place. It's late and the chill's starting to set in, and they're both soaking wet and filthy. Steve's hair is sticking up kind of funny, and Danny doesn't even want to _know_ what he looks like, but there's big grins on both their faces, and Danny doesn't think he's ever had a better time.

"It was like a fight to the death," Steve's exclaiming as they walk. "You weren't even—you weren't even pointing at the fire! You were pointing at my face!"

"_You_ soaked _me_!" Danny retorts. "I wasn't even trying to soak you, I swear!"

Steve throws his head back in a deep, rich laugh. "Oh, whatever! I looked into your eyes; I saw you—you had this crazy look in your eyes. You were like a crazy person."

"Not true." Even if it is kind of, but he's enjoying their little back and forth too much to let Steve win this one.

"Is too," Steve says. They're coming up on Danny's apartment, and Danny thinks this might be the first time he ever wished his apartment was in a _less_ convenient part of town. "And you know what else? I think I owe you another shirt."

They reach the stairs, then, to Danny's apartment, and Danny stops against the rail while Steve comes around to face him.

"And I _definitely_ owe you another date."

Danny feels his heartbeat ratchet up a few BMP's, and he's pretty sure a grin can't _actually_ split a face, but his kind of feels like it's working on it.

"Think so?" he says.

Steve nods, putting his hands on his hips, and he's suddenly got that intense look again. It's not one of his faces just yet, but Danny thinks it might have to become one. "Why don't you come to the farm with me next weekend?"

Danny wants to say yes. _God_, he wants to. But reality's knocking again, and there are things he has to think about. "I'll call you," he says finally, because that seems like an okay compromise.

At the very least, Steve seems happy with it, because his smile comes back. "I'll wait by the phone."

If the night had ended like that, with those words, Danny would've been happy. But Steve doesn't turn to leave, and neither does Danny, and the next thing Danny knows, Steve's closing the distance between them and sealing their lips together.

Danny's hands automatically go to rest on Steve's hips, and Steve's come to rest on either side of his face. His fingers curl in his hair; he pulls them closer together.

But then he backs away, and Danny finds himself staring into the deepest, most intense pair of blue eyes he's ever seen. And the way Steve's looking at him….

"What?" _What's that look? What does it mean?_

But instead of an answer, Steve just leans in and presses his lips to Danny's, and Danny thinks he can be okay with that. Because, as it turns out, Steve was right: this is _definitely_ the best kiss he's ever had.

It's over too soon, but at the same time, he thinks it's probably just about right for a first date. And as Steve starts to back away down the street, he fishes out his phone from his pocket and holds it up for Danny to see with a big, goofy grin, before turning around and setting off.

Danny watches him go, pretending it's Steve's height that makes him so easy to pick out from the crowd, and nothing more…clichéd. He waits until he gets across the next street down to turn back and head inside.

He's still smiling when he closes the door of his apartment behind him, and he bends down to give Jensen a good rub on the head before continuing on to his room

En route, though, he something catches his eye. There's a light blinking in the office, and he doesn't remember leaving anything on, so he wanders in to see what it is.

It's the fax machine.

Danny's heart leaps into his throat, and he can't get the lights on quick enough. His eyes rove the page at mach speed, until they zero in on a single line that somehow simultaneously makes his stomach do a happy flip and drop like lead to the soles of his shoes.

_By the determination of the New York City Family Court, __**Mr. Daniel Williams**__is hereby granted full custody of __**Grace Williams**__._

Granted full custody.

_Full_ custody.

Holy shit.


End file.
